MSTSC.EXE – no more /console switch in RDC 6.1

Happy New Year! We’re starting off 2008 with a significant post regarding changes to Remote Administration in Windows Server 2008. OK, it’s not quite as dire as the title makes it out to be, but this is quite a significant change. If you recall from our post on Session 0 Isolation, users can no longer connect to Session 0 on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 by design. On earlier builds of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, if you run mstsc /? from the command prompt, the following screen is displayed. Note the section in red below. If you use version 6.1 of the Remote Desktop Client included , in order to connect to the console session for Windows Server 2003, you should use the /admin switch instead. RDC 6.1 is included with the following operating systems:

Windows Server 2008

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta and RC

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) Beta and RC

The /admin switch allows you to connect to an administrative session for Windows Server 2008. As indicated above, it also connects you to the console session on Windows Server 2003. If you are running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or later, the following scenarios will return this error message:

In the RDC client UI, you specify Computer_name /console in the Computer box (where Computer_name represents the name of the remote computer to which you want to connect), and then click Connect.

In the .rdp file, you specify /console in the “full address” property, and then try to start the Remote Desktop connection.

So why is this important? Obviously if you have shortcuts, applications or scripts that rely on the /console switch, they will be affected by this change. One of the biggest impacts will be for administrators who connect to their servers using /console to perform application installations or maintenance. This functionality will still be available, however you will just need to use the /admin switch. There are also implications for developers who use the ConnectToServerConsole property of the IMsRdpClientAdvancedSettings interface. There is a different interface and property that they will need to use – namely the ConnectToAdministerServer property of the IMsRdpClientAdvancedSettings6 interface.

The Terminal Services team has posted more information on their blog – the link is below. As always, we welcome your feedback. Until next time …

Tags

Join the conversation

If you’re preparing yourself for Terminal Services in Server 2008, you should be aware that its new Session 0 isolation may change some application installations. Read this previous post, for more info on this change. It also changes the process whereby

Beginning with Windows Vista, Session 0 is non-interactive. If you refer to the post that we wrote earlier on Session 0 Isolation, we cover that. The ability to log on to an administrative session via RDP still exists – you now use the /admin switch, and not the /console switch when making your RDP connection.

There’s a link in the first paragraph of this post to a previous post we published that discusses Session 0 Isolation. There is a link at the end of this post to a post on the Terminal Services Team blog (Product Group) that discusses Console v Administrative sessions.

I’m not seeing the /ADMIN switch work against a Windows 2003 Server with the MSTSC included in Vista SP1 RC. It brings me to a new session on the server, not the console session. If I run it with the /CONSOLE switch it does work (though this switch is not included in the help file).

This was a terrible idea to change the syntax of the /console switch. This caused our plant downtime because we thought we were still connecting to the console session of our 2003 servers as we always have, but since we installed XP SP3 on our client machines, we were not, and we ended up opening two copies of our application on the same machine, causing problems with production. I’m sure I won’t be the only one with this issue.

Since installing XP SP3, the functionality of mstsc has changed. I used to be prompted for credentials before actually connecting to a server. Then, once the correct information was entered, the server gave me the warning dialog, and when accepted, logged me into the system.

Since I use multiple servers in multiple environments (multiple domains, and standalone), and since I also use a password manager with automatically generated passwords with a high complexity level, this was a great setup. I could copy/paste my passwords from the manager without ever exposing them to anyone (including myself).

I also use a management tool that allows me to have hot keys assigned to various functions. Selecting a server and executing a hot key against it will automatically launch the following command – "C:WINDOWSsystem32mstsc.exe /console "C:admintoolsDefault.rdp" /v:%E% /w:1024 /h:768"

This would launch against the servername (%E%), and use my default.rdp. The bonus to this setup was that my name (domain or computer)username was prepopulated correctly. I did not need multiple .rdp files.

How does this affect the Rmote Desktops mmc plug-in? I use this interface to manage my systems. It does have a connect to console check box, however even with it checked I do ont seem to connect to the console session.

I have been struggling with this switch until I discovered this web page today. (still attempting to use /console) Why not put up a message in the new client when the old switch is used — e.g. "/console no longer supportds… try /admin"

I’m really curious why this had to change, please explain. The article mentions ‘console session’ and ‘administrative session’ and ‘session 0’ without any further attempt at explaining the difference and when to expected one or the other.

Hey CC – It’s Kristal. We are trying to find out if there is any way to use tsmmc.msc to connect remotely with consoles now with RDP 6.1 in place. There is no /admin capability that we know of using the mmc.

Ditto the comments made by "Ben" on 5/13/08 and "Interested Bystander" on 01/15/09. My site also had production problems related to running two copies of an application because some of us (who had been upgraded to XP SP3) were still using the /console switch.

Changing the name of the switch would not be so bad if MicroSoft had not been so SLOPPY and just taken the time to properly QA their software. Since /console is not supported, that switch should generate an error message and not connect at all, instead of letting you proceed thinking things are working as expected.

By the way, we’re going to rename /migrate to /move. Don’t worry, it will do the exact same thing, except the name of the command you’ve been using for years is different, and in mixed environments you get to troubleshoot problems related to accidentally using /migrate, which will be made more difficult since /migrate won’t throw a flag when it doesn’t work. Also, don’t forget to change your scripts!